Not To Be
by caballlah
Summary: In which Tony and Steve discuss retirement plans and mutual friends.


Tony arrived late to the funeral. Not his own funeral, although yeah, probably that too, eventually. He was trying to sneak in some last-minute amendments to the Accords, give his lawyers some juicy loopholes to tie the courts up for years to come, and he actually thought maybe that was why Pepper had stayed with him so long. This was actually fun, figuring out the system, playing with it, pushing it like it could be pushed.

He almost could've stayed on the Leer, trying to file a missive for every country that had attached their name to the bill, but at a certain point he was just delaying the inevitable. And that's what this was all about, right? Not delaying the inevitable, riding the train as far as you could, but getting off while you weren't going over a bridge. And it seemed like there was a hell of a lot of bridge coming up.

The new bodyguard service was all about low-profile. He was sure he would give them hell soon enough, but right now he appreciated a jet that didn't have his name on it, a car that went anonymous too. It got him to the church with a lack of publicity, and he found more of a _lack_ waiting for him. Almost appropriate for a woman with such tradecraft. Peggy Carter had saved the world, in enough bits and pieces that you could call her an Avenger by the end of the day, and now she was exiting it with as much discretion as she'd shown living in it. Maybe it wasn't fair, but it was fitting.

He hadn't wanted to catch the service anyway. He'd seen the eulogy for his parents'—some kind of mirror universe ticker-tape parade, everyone competing to be the most grieving, to be the most hurt, like they were trying to steal his crown. The fawning obsequiousness of their sympathy. Didn't do anything for him. Hell, weren't you supposed to move on, get over this stuff? People were comfortable with that, but only if you did it on their timetable. Fuck 'em.

Empty graveyard, empty chairs, the flowers starting to wilt. What happened to those, anyway? Collected, resold, thrown on new graves? Maybe given to young lovers on Valentine's Day. Heck, could be plastic. He should've brought flowers. Pepper would've reminded him to bring flowers.

He stared at the grave. Everyone was at the, what, afterparty? Wake? Yeah, wake. The corpse left cold, alone, out in the world. Where it belonged, of course, but it seemed wrong somehow. Everyone went inside and toasted a pretty picture while the real thing was safely in the ground. They should at least do it out here. What, was someone going to _mind?_

He stood at the foot of the disturbed plot, the fresh earth, the sparkling new headstone. White as ivory, simple inscription, no angel, no statue, just the little U of the gravestone, barely more than a marker. _I was here, here I remain,_ he thought. What was that, a poem? It'd been ages. He'd been pretentious as a child, rather than precocious.

His back was straighter, just having her bones nearby. She was Howard's friend, not his. Still, he should've taken better care of her, kept up the legacy, family name… he'd made it to his _nanny's_ funeral, not that that mattered, but who knew, maybe it did. He didn't know. Didn't know if Peggy did.

"Long time no see, Mrs. Carter." Gotten married in the sixties. Kept her maiden name, of course. One of those on-again, off-again things, he remembered from the stories. The Ballad of Sousa and Carter. Kept seeming like they would never get it right. Gave him hope, in a funny sort of way. Maybe they meant it when they said all the best ones didn't have it on straight.

And he'd never known what to say to her when she'd been alive either. She'd still been beautiful enough, and he'd still been shitty enough, for the chorus of Here's To You Mrs. Robinson to take up a lot of mental real estate. But for a genius, he wasn't _that_ dumb. Everything polite, cordial, businesslike. Maybe why they'd never been bestest buds. With Rhodey, with Pepper, he took a joy in turning business into pleasure. Looking for family everywhere but a graveyard.

"Guess you'll want me to take care of your old flame," he said, feeling awkward, melodramatic, a bit cliché. Did people talk to gravestones, really? He had a hell of a lot of dead people, it'd never really occurred to him before. But he'd wanted the headstone, right, not the funeral? Not the people _at_ the funeral?

"Like he needs it…" Tony shook his head. Yeah, this was way too clichéd for him. He'd save it for his MySpace page. "Tell my dad I say hi. If you're not mounting a rescue mission in the opposite direction…"

He wandered off. Brisk, chilly day—for once, London had decided it wasn't going to rain. Maybe would've given away the funeral. Again, he thought of Peggy just sneaking out, as subtly and slyly as she'd retired, gotten sick, _gone._ Not that there'd been many guards, not in the Fourth Estate, all of them too busy working the Lagos angle, the Wakanda angle, the Accords angle. Digging up Sokovia and New York and Washington, but where were the journalists with enough farsightedness to look back to the forties, back to the SSR instead of SHIELD, to Steve Rogers instead of Captain America?

His aimless wanderings refused to stay aimless. He found Steve leaning against a tree—tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, never was comfortable in a suit. Probably should've worn a uniform, but hadn't. If he had a problem with it, Tony didn't get him enough to know why. The guy talked about duty, but he and Tony didn't own the same dictionary.

Tony reached into his jacket, brought out the flask, offered it. "That doesn't work on me," Steve said, and Tony barreled through with the assumption that he meant the drink and not the gesture.

"180 proof," Tony said. "I figure the more of us there are, the more people with your hollow leg. Gotta be something for them to get drunk on."

Steve took the flask, slugged it. Handed it back with a lack of disappointment.

Tony screwed the cap back on. "Yeah, Stark Microbrewery. All the cool kids are doing it these days."

"I didn't know you knew her," Steve said. Never had had much time for bullshit. Maybe why they didn't get along so well. Tony had an aesthetic appreciation for bullshit that hadn't been dented no matter how long the war stretched—so maybe Steve had just been born without it.

"Not well," Tony replied. "Friend of the family. Never babysitted or anything like that. She and my dad played Jane Bond and Q until they were playing M and Q. And since I liked to have some state lines between me and a family reunion, her around Dad when she wasn't taking a sledgehammer to the Berlin Wall—we weren't close."

"Close enough for you to come to her funeral," Steve observed.

"Yeah, well, she wasn't a stranger either."

"If you want to talk Accords—"

"It's a graveyard, Steve. Give me a little credit—I've gotten pretty good at avoiding _business_ over the years. As well as all situations that make me personally uncomfortable, organized religion, country music… commitment, that's a big one…"

"I think she would've appreciated you coming," Steve said. All magnanimous. "Knowing her, I think she might've liked you more than she let on."

"I assume that about everyone, actually."

Tony leaned his shoulder against the tree. The oak was as tall and strong as the metaphor, and Tony felt a horrible lyricism to Steve being propped up against it, more square and even than the wood, like he was holding it up instead of the other way around. Whenever Tony sensed Life trying to teach him a lesson, he gave it the finger for being too pat.

"Not to talk shop, but have you given the endgame any thought? The Accords get signed, you really gonna take your toys and go home?"

Steve looked at him and Tony knew he still hadn't found that dark side Steve liked to warn him about. "I wouldn't put it that way."

"You'd be _illegal,_ Cap. There's this thing they invented in the Sixties, 'go along to get along,' maybe you should try it—" Tony drove his head against the trunk. Felt his perfect hair take a little dishevelment. "Sorry. She wouldn't want some sort of negotiation going on here…"

"Are you kidding? She'd love it. 'Hang the bollocks, back to work.'"

"No wonder Dad liked her so much." Tony shook his head. Sighed. "I just want a breather. We at least need that. HYDRA, Ultron, Lagos… a breather isn't too much to ask."

"Just because you don't ask for a lot doesn't mean you'll get it," Steve said, focused inward, and Tony supposed a lawn, two kids, family dog, and a white-picket fence weren't much to ask for.

"I'm just asking as your friend. What's the gameplan? What's Plan B? Avengers sign the Accords, you quit the Avengers—what happens? We don't have much in common, but I'm Iron Man, you're Captain America. How's that change?"

"It doesn't. But there's other battlefields. I hear they're having problems in New York—people putting on masks to try and help out. Maybe I could see if they're hiring." Steve's grin had no business being that wry.

"I don't know how long they get a blind eye just because they're going after purse snatchers and muggers instead of terrorists and aliens."

"Then I guess I join a police department."

"You could write your memoirs. Promote some charity." Tony's eyebrows jogged. "Punch out Hitler some more."

"That happened before you were _born,_ can't you let it go?"

"Not on Youtube, not on public television… maybe at car shows… Vegas…"

"We could make it a double-act. You finally retire, once and for all, wouldn't take much for you to work up a good stand-up routine."

"Think you can still get dancing girls?"

"I do get a few applications every now and then."

"Now we just need to get Clint shooting arrows at a blonde. You know, with balloons all around her? Spinning wheel of death, blindfold on him, something on fire? Saw it on Johnny Carson once… time does fly."

"Not every night. Maybe just weekends." Steve nodded. "Come home to the same bed seven days in a row. Work down my list of pop culture references. Finally understand what you're saying half the time."

"We could share an apartment to save on costs. Cute kid, cuter dog, we've got ourselves a sitcom."

"It'd be a heck of a thing," Steve said, amicable as could be, and Tony let himself smile at him.

"Yeah. It'd be something else."

"Cat, though. Have to be a cat."

"Oh, well then, forget it." Tony pulled himself away from the tree, brushed off his suit, adjusted his tie.

"We have a lot in common," Steve said, nodding to the tombstone. "All of us. We're never going to retire. Not until they put us in the ground."

"Yeah. Loads in common. Just hope it'll be enough." Tony walked off, shaking his head. "Cat person. Jee-zus…"


End file.
